Organicconsumers.org does a lot to promote GMO-labeling, organics, and sustainability (true sustainability, not just as a buzzword like when big corporations try to present some of their products as "green").

I'm all for GMO-labeling, it's just that if we would just do our homework, then GMO labeling would be unnecessary because we would know where our food is coming from. It's quite a bit more difficult to do though when you don't eat all organic; but it kind of defeats the purpose to avoid GMO's but then go ahead and consume artificial/synthetic-insecticide-chemicals.

By the way, Monsanto and co. is not even capitalism, it's corporatocracy (well we could call it crony-capitalism or monopoly-capitalism, but I think corporatocracy is more accurate; and that's another topic though).

Last edited by Lhug-Pa on Wed Nov 06, 2013 8:06 am, edited 2 times in total.

So sorry, it failed moments ago. It failed last year in CA where I live. The fight could rise again for us after the decisive actions taken in South America and Hungary/Europe? where Monsanto has been ousted and crops burned. Meanwhile, go fresh and organic.... I was pretty impressed with the farmer's market in Olympia!

It's capitalism working as intended IMO. Not a good thing from my point of view, but call it what you want I suppose.

I get most of my produce from a CSA share (i'm in Olympia), the farm is literally right behind me. It's true about doing one's homework, it's just kind of crazy the amount of money they spent in order to continue not being required label, it's mind boggling to me.

Many Libertarians have their ideal of a non-corpocratic and truly free-market capitalism, just as socialists have their ideal form of socialism. And I think that either could work, that is if they didn't end up as either monopoly-capitalist corpocratic-oligarchies or brutal corpocratic communist-dictatorships.

Anyway, that's just the thing, Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, PepsiCo. etc. know that most people don't do their homework; therefore if GMO's get labeled, then all these people who aren't willing to do their homework can more easily stay away from Monsanto's toxins. Of course Monsanto doesn't want that so they and their bankster, pharmaceutical, lobby, and corporate buddies dump multi-millions into disinformation campaigns.

The Organicconsumers.org Comprehensive Boycott Guide that I linked to earlier in this thread is a nice reference. It can save you hours of homework.

Monsanto’s massive campaign to defeat your very right to know what’s in your food has been backed by over $22 million in corporate funding from sources like DuPont and Bayer, but the reality is that these corrupt corporate monopolies are fighting just to survive within the world’s food supply.Perhaps most amazing to me is the fact that just $550 of the $22 million donated to fighting the GMO labeling initiative actually came from Washington citizens. To put that into perspective, that’s around .0025% of the total finances. The rest, actually came from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, Dow AgroSciences and Bayer CropScience — the same corporations who are actively dominating the food supply with all forms of genetically modified varieties.Monsanto right now is backed against a corner like a stray animal, fighting with mass amounts of the almighty dollar in order to survive for just a few moments longer. Even the mainstream media now has been forced to reveal Monsanto’s ugly head in light of the Washington voting initiative.Overall, it is not time to lose morale in the fight for the reclamation of our food, but instead to voice another rallying cry as the beast that is Monsanto begins to truly show how desperate it really is.—-Anthony Gucciardi is the acting Editor and Founder of alternative news website Storyleak.com, as well as the Founder of the third largest natural health website in the world, NaturalSociety.com. He is also a news media personality and analyst who has been featured on top news, radio, and television organizations including Drudge Report, Michael Savage’s Savage Nation, Coast to Coast AM, and RT.

I honestly don't understand how people can live in that place with the current domination of the body politic by businessmen. Though I am an American citizen and had job offers there, I can't imagine leaving a civilized country to live there. It's a shame, because there are some unbelievably beautiful natural wonders there. It's a shame that it can't live up to its oft-cited ideals of personal responsibility.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. - H.L. Mencken

Lhug-Pa wrote:By the way, Monsanto and co. is not even capitalism, it's corporatocracy (well we could call it crony-capitalism or monopoly-capitalism, but I think corporatocracy is more accurate; and that's another topic though).

Karma Dorje wrote:I honestly don't understand how people can live in that place with the current domination of the body politic by businessmen. Though I am an American citizen and had job offers there, I can't imagine leaving a civilized country to live there. It's a shame, because there are some unbelievably beautiful natural wonders there. It's a shame that it can't live up to its oft-cited ideals of personal responsibility.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. - H.L. Mencken

Yeah, I wish is was practical to leave TBH, I continue to be floored by the persistence of the mythology of meritocracy here, i can't even count the number of people i've worked with over the years that live in this delusional world of Horatio Alger fantasies, like it'll just be a matter of time before they are in the %1..and like it would even solve the problem if they are.

It would be interesting to run a campaign encouraging people to grow their own food instead of purchasing it from the store until GMO's are labelled.

GMO producer's might get out of the way and let legislation be passed if the alternative was people realizing they don't need GMO producers.

Everyone at my university is furious with Monsanto right now. And yesterday or something was guy Fawkes day. I was hoping the brit professors would be wearing their guy fawkes masks lol. Where do you buy those anyways? I want one for mornings when I haven't had time to put on makeup.

If there is a radical inconsistency between your statements and the position you claim to hold,you are a sock puppet.Make as many accounts as you want; people can identify your deception with this test.

The problem is that growing one's own food is (for a variety of complex reasons) outside the reach of many people, often tied to income and related things. We have some programs in my town that do things like teach low income folks how to grow their own garden..a great thing, and I imagine one that will be pretty useful in coming years where I expect Americans are in for leaner times, and lots of poor people are facing loss of whatever food benefit they receive.

That's why the Monsanto thing is so depressing, informed consumers will always be a minority by design..

Yes, not easy growing our own food sometimes... still, where there is a will, there is a way. Roof top gardens, a man in LA who is teaching ghetto folks how to use their resources to grow food with amazing results, front lawns transformed... there is a passion for it...

Another issue with growing your own food is that Monsanto has their own patented seeds, which are genetically modified to be resistant to their own pesticide 'round-up'. They also have genetically modified certain seeds to contain a killswitch that triggers after a season or two and renders the seed unable to germinate. So farmers are forced to buy new seeds every season instead of storing seeds. These corporations are insane.

Now I'm no expert on how easy it may or may not be to obtain non-GMO Organic and Heirloom seeds for both farmers and individuals (which all who grow food ought to be doing, that is if we really care about people's health and the ecosystem) but if you grow them and a truck passes by carrying Monsanto's GMO's and some of it flies off the truck as it passes through, and it cross germinates with your organic plants, then if Monsanto's people come and test your crops and find some their GMO genes in your (now contaminated) crop, they'll try to sue you for growing their patented seeds without their permission. It seems unlikely, but happens quite frequently it seems (I'm sure they hire trucks to do it to farmers on purpose too).

The votes are still being counted in Washington State. And although our opponents are still ahead, the YES on 522 campaign to label GMOs gained a little ground yesterday.

But the ground we gained in Washington, in the form of votes, is nothing compared with the ground—in the form of soil and farms and fields—we plan to take back from Monsanto in the months and years ahead.

This battle, win or lose in Washington State, has just begun.

Our opponents filled the Washington State airwaves these past few months with the same lies they used last year, to defeat GMO labeling in California. They even broke campaign finance laws in order to shield the big-name junk food corporations who didn’t want us to know they were funding those lies again.

But of all the lies and illegal maneuverings, the worst one, the most dangerous lie, perpetrated by Monsanto and the junk food industry was this: GMOs are safe.

In their haste to claim victory yesterday, the Grocery Manufacturers Association released a statement, which included this egregious lie:

“Genetically modified food ingredients (GMOs) are safe, good for the environment, reduce the cost of food and help feed a growing global population of seven billion.”

As long as the food companies are under Monsanto’s spell, as long as there are uninformed people who buy into the propaganda, we have our work cut out for us.

Labeling GMOs is only the beginning.

Watch out, Monsanto. We have plans. And those plans include taking back our seeds, our food, our farms, our rights. Our health. We will keep gaining ground. Until we reclaim it for the people."]